Over the past six weeks, as Israel has put nearly the entirety of Gaza under forced evacuation orders, Israeli forces have also been escalating its attacks on schools in the region, bombing a school every other day on average in this period of time.
Last week, the UN raised alarm about Israels’ school attacks, finding that Israel had attacked at least 17 schools over the previous month. These attacks killed at least 163 Palestinians. These figures have indicated that Israel is escalating attacks against schools, the UN Office on Human Rights said, and the office called on Israel to comply with international humanitarian law.
Other reports have found that Israel has been attacking schools at a rapid rate. Al Jazeera reported on Monday that, just since July, Israel has launched 21 attacks on schools; a rate of nearly one attack every two days in the past six weeks. In recent weeks, these attacks have specifically escalated in Gaza City, in which Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported on Friday Israel had attacked nine schools-turned-shelters in eight days.
The latest massacre on Saturday was another of these deadly attacks. Israel dropped three bombs, including at least one U.S.-made bomb, on a group of Palestinians gathered in the school for a morning prayer. The attack killed at least 93 Palestinians, including at least 11 children, and rendered the remains of many totally unrecognizable.
Israel’s attack on the al-Tabin school in Gaza City grabbed headlines across western news outlets, as it was one of the worst single bombings of the genocide so far — but it was just one of many attacks on schools Israel has carried out that have largely not been reported in major outlets.
“Gaza: In the largest and most shameful concentration camp of the 21st century, Israel is genociding the Palestinians one neighborhood at the time, one hospital at the time, one school at the time, one refugee camp at the time, one ‘safe zone’ at the time,” said UN Special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese after the attack. “With U.S. and European weapons. And amid the indifference of all ‘civilised nations.’”
Al-Tabin, like many of the other structures Israel has targeted, has been turned into a shelter for the forcibly displaced and was housing thousands of people at the time of the bombing; other attacks on schools in recent months have similarly been aimed at makeshift shelters housing thousands.
Israel’s military has been targeting schools at a higher rate than it has other buildings. Earlier this month, the UN-backed Global Education Cluster reported that Israel has damaged or destroyed almost 85 percent of school buildings over the past 10 months of its genocide. Meanwhile, a separate UN assessment found that Israel has damaged roughly 63 percent of buildings in Gaza.
The escalation of school attacks is emblematic of Israel’s assault on all aspects of childrens’ lives and communities amid its genocide — not only representing attacks on families taking shelter in the school buildings, but also on the future of Gaza’s children after the genocide ends.
It comes after Israel said at the end of June that it was entering a less intense phase of its assault on Gaza and is nonetheless continuing apace with its massacres and famine and disease campaigns.
The escalation has also come as the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has initiated a “back to learning” program to phase Gaza’s children back into a school environment. In addition to art, music and sports, the agency said the first phase will teach children on the risks of the unexploded ordnance scattered across Gaza.
“My house was destroyed, and my family went to Rafah; now we are in Khan Yunis,” a 10-year-old child named Reem told the UNRWA, according to a press release from August 1. “My tent is near this shelter. I came to join recreational activities as soon as I heard that this programme was on. I am so happy that I met my friends and teachers.”
Since August 1, Israel has issued multiple evacuation orders in Khan Yunis and has yet again escalated its attacks there.
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